Travels with Herodotus - bookrastinating.com

Hardcover, 275 pages

English language

Published Nov. 13, 2007 by A.A. Knopf.

ISBN:: 978-1-4000-4338-5

From the renowned journalist comes this intimate account of his years in the field, traveling for the first time beyond the Iron Curtain to India, China, Ethiopia, and other exotic locales.In the 1950s, Ryszard Kapuscinski finished university in Poland and became a foreign correspondent, hoping to go abroad -- perhaps to Czechoslovakia. Instead, he was sent to India -- the first stop on a decades-long tour of the world that took Kapuscinski from Iran to El Salvador, from Angola to Armenia. Revisiting his memories of traveling the globe with a copy of Herodotus' Histories in tow, Kapuscinski describes his awakening to the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of new environments, and how the words of the Greek historiographer helped shape his own view of an increasingly globalized world. Written with supreme eloquence and a constant eye to the global undercurrents that have shaped the last half-century, Travels with Herodotus is an exceptional …

From the renowned journalist comes this intimate account of his years in the field, traveling for the first time beyond the Iron Curtain to India, China, Ethiopia, and other exotic locales.In the 1950s, Ryszard Kapuscinski finished university in Poland and became a foreign correspondent, hoping to go abroad -- perhaps to Czechoslovakia. Instead, he was sent to India -- the first stop on a decades-long tour of the world that took Kapuscinski from Iran to El Salvador, from Angola to Armenia. Revisiting his memories of traveling the globe with a copy of Herodotus' Histories in tow, Kapuscinski describes his awakening to the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of new environments, and how the words of the Greek historiographer helped shape his own view of an increasingly globalized world. Written with supreme eloquence and a constant eye to the global undercurrents that have shaped the last half-century, Travels with Herodotus is an exceptional chronicle of one man's journey across continents.From the Trade Paperback edition.

5 editions

Joel A reviewed Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuściński

Review of 'Travels with Herodotus' on 'LibraryThing'

3 stars

As with many posthumous books, one wonders if the writer planned some of the necessary revising. The book is both a combination of memoir and book review of Herodotus's Histories. Kapuscinski clearly self-identifies with Herodotus: thinking about how the ancient author was a predecessor as a reporter, travelling vast distances to hear from people their own tales, and then recording it along with his own assessment of the credibility.returnreturnKapuscinski devotes large portions of the book to simply retelling what Herodotus told, and this is less interesting. Every once in a while, though, he does something: he asks of the text probing questions, of the sort he would ask if he were doing the reporting. The result, though, is to undermine the credibility of the same text he is praising to the heavens.

Subjects

Herodotus
Kapuściński, Ryszard -- Travel